


Messages from home

by twofrontteethstillcrooked



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Helen Gansey is a not-so-secret badass, Offscreen Ronan/Adam somethingerotherness, Snippetfic that follows snippetfic, snippetfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:08:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4067878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofrontteethstillcrooked/pseuds/twofrontteethstillcrooked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gansey's weekend with his campaigning folks is interrupted, proving the adage 'Careful what you wish for' is often obnoxiously accurate. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>This might (???) stand on its own, but it probably makes more sense (???) if you read <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4057966">A small kindness</a> first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Messages from home

**Author's Note:**

> 3 June 2015 snippetfic for Sit the Fuck Down and Write Month

Gansey had read somewhere that experts recommended new clothing be laundered before it was worn, and he regretted this advice had not been applied to the pristine, recently purchased white shirt he was wearing. Some chemical hiding in its supposedly 100% organic cotton composition was giving him a rash. How absurd, that anything costing over $100 would carry such a high risk of hives.

And how ridiculous, he thought, that a new white shirt existed in the first place: counting the beach house on the Cape and the Italian villa his mother kept insisting they'd sell (but maybe Helen wanted it?), Gansey's arsenal of expensive and exclusive crisp white designer dress shirts spanned four cities and two continents, and unless he lived to be 9000 years old without adding to his wardrobe he would never put even the slightest wear on any of the shirts.

Unless he took up mud wrestling, or killing people for sport. Because you never know.

He could feel Helen's glare on the back of this neck, suppressed a great sigh, scratched the bend of his arm again, and sat up a little straighter. Their mother's speech, the last of the evening in front of a large mass of mega-wealthy old Republicans (redundant to label them this way? he wondered), indistinguishable from the last group she'd spoken to, was going well, but didn't they always? This meant Gansey would probably be home late tomorrow, unless he could figure out a reason to leave earlier.

He needed to work on his obfuscation techniques -- he didn't like to think of himself as a liar, and his parents weren't unreasonable, of course, but his designs on Henrietta were at this point so complicated it didn't seem sensible to be entirely honest. Helen knew something was up, though, and she'd been eagle-eyed this whole trip.

He kinda hated not telling her about recent events with Glendower's daughter and Blue's parents and Blue. ( _And Blue._ He let himself think of her once in full, and then put her from his mind.) On the other hand, there was no way Helen's foot had just accidentally slipped against the leg of his chair for a third time.

Gansey stared at the clock on the wall way across the ballroom and then as covertly as he could double-checked the time by his wristwatch. 12:03 a.m., jesus. Old conservative millionaires sure knew how to party. No wonder he was anxious to _get the hell away like yesterday sweet merciful christ_.

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket when everyone was standing during the applause, smiling with too much tooth, his mother waving to an ebullient audience, his father giving thumbs up to some GOP executives in the front row. Three minutes later Gansey ignored Helen's attempts to steer him towards another batch of handshaking gladhanding backslapping and ducked into an alcove by the country club's kitchen.

Seeing Ronan's name and number beside the little text envelope on his lock screen made Gansey's stomach lurch a little. Ronan hated his phone.

12:11 hhhhh

12:11 hhhee

12:11 heey

12:11 hey

12:11 its noah ive stolen ronans phone u have to come home now

12:12 supr urgent

12:12 :{{{{

Gansey dialed Ronan's number immediately, pushed his way through a milling pile of his mother's potential constituents, and found fresh air on a thankfully unoccupied patio. He waited seven awful seconds for someone to answer.

"Gansey?" Declan Lynch asked.

Am I? Gansey thought for a surreal beat. Hearing Declan's voice instead of Ronan's or even Noah's was so unexpected his whole body felt like it was one big sticky itch.

"Hello?" Declan said.

"I'm here. What the hell is going on?"

Declan murmured something to someone on his end and then said, "Noah, I'll let you talk to him in a minute. Now shhh." Gansey heard him clear his throat. "Hey, sorry to bother you, Gansey. There's been... An incident, I guess. Adam's father has died."

Gansey felt like his head was going to float away and like his feet were cemented to the floor.

"Uh, he was killed, actually," Declan continued quietly. "It's one of those long short stories, you know? If there's any way you could come back early, it'd probably be prudent."

"Is Adam okay? Where's Ronan?" Gansey asked, hoping he wasn't yelling.

"They're fine, uh, you know, as well as can be expected. Noah and I are hiding in your bathroom at the moment. I would've called sooner but Noah beat me to it." On these last two points Declan sounded pretty sheepish.

Gansey let out a long, stuttering breath, and tried to think what he'd need to do or say or steal to be able to drive from this country club immediately to Monmouth, as quickly as possible. Helen had driven separately; could he just hotwire her Lexus? He'd heard about people tossing aside cars in order to save children trapped beneath them, so surely the know-how in merely cracking a steering column and/or fiddling with a few wires under the dash would magically come to him once he'd broken the window to get into the driver's seat...

Maybe he could just ask to borrow the car nicely. Or buy it outright. The fact of her helicopter not being an option at present filled him with too much frustration to contemplate.

"Mom wants you to meet this GE fellow," Helen said, having materialized from nothingness to touch Gansey's elbow and make him jerk about six feet backwards.

"Jesus," Gansey said. Helen stepped back and gave him A Look.

"Why are you so sweaty?" she asked.

"Are you coming home now?" Noah said on the other end of Gansey's phone. "You need to come home now." He sounded plaintive but determined.

"Yes, I'll be there in four hours, tops," Gansey told him and Noah hung up.

Helen's look intensified. "Where are you going?"

"I need to take your car," Gansey said, heading toward a gate that would hopefully lead to a path that would hopefully lead to the parking lot.

Helen scurried to keep up with him. "What's happened?"

"Adam's father is dead." Why were country clubs always so interested in hedge mazes? Gansey edged through two over-pruned topiaries and fought his way to some blacktop that seemed promising.

"Is Adam hurt?" Helen asked, and Gansey thought how truly, astronomically terrible it would be to have the sort of father who was unlikely to pass from this world in anything resembling peace. He felt a pang of guilt about leaving his parents without even saying goodbye.

"He's okay, apparently, but Noah and Declan called--"

"Oh my god," Helen said, jumping a speedbump, "what a dream team. It's over here, dummy." She yanked him up the row nearest the front doors and her apple red beauty came into view. She fished a gold key fob out of a vintage Fendi crossover Gansey knew had cost at least half Adam's annual earnings from working three lousy jobs and pressed it in his hand. Then she took out her phone and did something with her thumbs with amazing speed. The car came to life. Who needed magic when there were apps?

"If you wreck it, I'll murder you," she said pleasantly as Gansey opened the driver side door and slid onto the leather seat.

"You are my favorite sister," Gansey said with emphasis.

Helen slammed the door on him, not bothering to check to ensure his body parts were safely inside the car first.

But they had been, and fifteen minutes later he was on the empty interstate, going too fast and not fast enough, beneath a black sky pinpricked with white-blue specks of light spun toward earth years ago. Every time he thought he'd gotten better, wiser, something came along to pull him up short. His heart felt like it was racing ahead of him, like it could break a land speed record, _oh I've got to get home, home, home_ , he thought, knowing home really had nothing to do with Henrietta, Virginia at all.

**Author's Note:**

> uh-oh i'd never thought of declan/noah as a thing but now i really am send help
> 
> [eta 17 June 2015] [next part's here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4153590)


End file.
